Boston Celtics Fall Apart Without Marcus Smart

The Boston Celtics had their worst loss of the season against the Brooklyn Nets and they never looked like the team that won three games in a row with Marcus Smart out with an injury. We hoped that the Celtics would regain their defensive form with a tough game against the Atlanta Hawks but they looked just as uninspired.

There is no doubting that the team is missing Smart’s overall impact. No team in the NBA depends more on hustle plays and pure effort than the Celtics. Smart will not let up for a single moment in any game and his teammates feed off of his energy. In addition to all the turnovers that Smart generates, he makes it much easier for his teammates to also generate steals.

There were moments during the Hawks game when the Celtics managed to go on runs. They stayed close in the game up until the end of the fourth quarter and that was because of a few little runs where they took the ball away multiple times in a row and got transition baskets as a result of it. The Celtics held their own despite Isaiah Thomas having the worst game of his season and having only Avery Bradley and R.J Hunter play positive games.

Nov 24, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Boston Celtics guard Avery Bradley (0) steals the ball away from Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap (4) in the third quarter of their game at Philips Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

The problem is that they did not sustain that kind of defense throughout the game. The team had their moments but they continue to make things much easier on their opponents. The Celtics had more steals and even more offensive rebounds but they allowed the Hawks to shoot 56.3% overall and 50% from three.

The Celtics are not playing their strongest defense for stretches in these games and even without Smart being there to generate the majority of that activity, they still need to collectively do a better job of returning to their defensive form. Jae Crowder, the once league leader in steals, has gone without a steal in both these these difficult loses. Smart does a great job of putting his teammates in better positions to get steals, but Crowder himself was responsible for more of those steals. Crowder needs to once against become a leader of this defense and bring the energy that is lacking without Smart.

The other big problem during the game was Thomas, who was more of a liability for the majority of the game. Even in previous poor shooting games this season Thomas still generated offense through his passing but against the Hawks he had just two assists.

The bottom line is that nobody except for Avery Bradley is playing really well for the Celtics and the they need to get back to having a second unit that crushes teams and to the defense that was once number one in efficiency in the league. The Celtics will never be the same without Smart, but they can certainly be much better than they were in these last two games.

Smart is still going to be out for multiple weeks so the Celtics are going to have to figure things out quickly. The Celtics should get their confidence back against a winless 76ers team but if the Celtics continue to play like this they will struggle to compete with any of their next three opponents in the Wizards, the Magic and the Heat.

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The Celtics are at risk to fall back under .500 after being the most games above .500 in the Brad Stevens era. They need to find a way to play like they did the first time against the Hawks where they had 27 more shot attempts, and as long as they can hold things together with Smart out, they will be in a good position once he returns.

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